Sister Pierrette Toussaine Blondeau, seen here with a wounded patient, turned to the newly invented medium of photography to commemorate her role as caregiver to the poor. Though the identity of the photographer and young boy remain unknown, the inscription on the verso of this full-plate daguerreotype reveals a great deal of Sister Blondeau’s biographical information: born in 1809, she entered the Hostel Dieu de Beaune in 1832, became a novice in 1834, and took the full habit in 1835. She died in 1895, after sixty-three years of religious life.